Top and left: A South Korean Army tank releases smoke bombs to hide itself during the U.S.-South Korea joint military exercise against possible attacks by North Korea, at a shooting range near the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas in Paju, 28 miles north of Seoul, June 8, 2011.

Lower left: A South Korean Army tank fires blank ammunition during the U.S.-South Korea joint military exercise.

The smoke kind of reminds me of the smoke-messages one often sees depicted as the form of communication used by native americans… could this exercise have something in common? I guess the message above would read:

Grafenwöhr Training Area, Germany, 1980. My memory is not what it once was, but in my memory, filtered through 30 years of therapy and many episodes of South
Park, my training there went something like this.

Me: “Uh, Mr. Sergeant, sir. Yea, uh, I didn’t really sign on for this. I’m supposed to be in a helicopter. Now, if you could just help me pull my legs out of this 4 feet of mud, I’ll be on my way.”

MBT approaches.

Instructor: “Do you see?”

Me: Okay, yea, I see. Yes, Sir. Uh, now if you’ll help me get this assault pack off my back, all 62 pounds of it, I’ll pull my face out of this mud and be on my way. I’ll just leave my boots right there in the mud. My socks, too. Hey, I’ll leave my pants, too.”

I don’t remember much of Graf, Shra. I think I’m confusing memories of training at Graf and Hohenfels. What I do remember is realizing that I could feel the vibrations from the tanks in my guts. We had to press our fingers against the other person’s cheekbone so that we could talk to each other. And the deep, cold mud. The tank driver would park his tank in the mud. Next morning, it would be frozen in place.

What I have found to be most effective,- to shut up a yapping mini dog when he and his owner is visiting across the street (to keep Aunty Remus out of her ‘kill ’em all and let God keep the count’ moods), is to hide myself in the vegetation and then to shoot bottle rockets at him. It works wonders on that ‘nuisance barker!’

O M G!!! Doc, I think you may have been stationed in Germany with Francis Dolarhyde. Did he have an impressive tattoo on his back? And a cleft palate?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9pfk3cyM uA&feature=related